


The Second Greatest Swordsman

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe, Betrayal, Canonical Character Death, Kidnapping, Kissing, Recruitment, Spies & Secret Agents, Stabbing, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 22:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5802040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Eliot never left Moreau's service.  On Damien's orders, he recruits Parker into the arms dealer's service and teaches her to pass as a member of the security detail.</p><p>In the end he gets more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Second Greatest Swordsman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poppetawoppet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppetawoppet/gifts).



> Thank you so much for playing with us! I wrote this for your #3 prompt: _Eliot never leaves Moreau, and in his work, somehow recruits Parker, eventually becoming Number Two to Eliot's number one. Whether or not she takes Eliot out is dealer's choice._
> 
> Length and time restrictions mean I wasn't able to flesh this out as completely as I wanted, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless!

_Why the hell does he want you so badly?_ Eliot Spencer was an expert in finding out what his boss – Damien Moreau – wanted and getting it for him. He’d certainly succeeded on the second part this time, but the fact that he didn’t understand _why_ he’d been tasked with this particular retrieval was like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

The girl was secured to a chair in the center of the room. She was hooded and gagged, although Eliot’s brain continually sketched in the features he couldn’t see. She was young…beautiful…but there was something almost feral about her. He forced back the urge to strip off the hood and try and get inside her head, taking a long swig of his beer instead. Damien wouldn’t approve of the alcohol this early, but Eliot had needed something to steady himself.

This one hadn’t been easy.

Another twenty minutes went by before he heard sound at the door. He had a moment to set the beer aside and come to something resembling attention before Moreau entered – every inch of him tense and eager. “You got her!” he breathed, on seeing the asset. His gaze shifted to Eliot. “Of course you did, my friend. I should never have doubted you. Did you encounter any difficulties?”

Eliot shrugged, but Moreau’s dark eyes went immediately to the dark purple bruise at the outer edge of his right eye. Clearly amused, he reached up to brush the mark with his fingertips. Eliot shivered at his master’s touch, but didn’t flinch away. “I was right about this one,” Moreau said, lowering his hand and stepping back. “You will see.”

Pivoting, he gestured for Eliot to remove the hood. There was a split second where Eliot registered a tumble of long blond hair, and then the room exploded in chaos as the girl launched herself directly at Moreau.

Putting himself between Moreau and danger was as automatic for Eliot as breathing. He caught the girl in a tight embrace, pulling her in close to his chest as Damien retreated to the door. Her hands were still bound behind her back – she’d managed to undo the rope securing her to the chair while he was watching her, but had run out of time to do anything more.

It was impressive, except for the part about her accomplishing it while Eliot was watching her.

“Sit down,” he growled, forcing her back into the chair. His Glock was out a moment later, the muzzle pressed against her forehead to make his point. It wasn’t a tactically sound move, or anything he would have tried if the girl’s hands had been freed, but under the circumstances it did the job. She glared at him with eyes that promised far more than the bruise she’d gifted him with if she got the chance, but Eliot saw her body gradually relax back into the seat.

“Parker,” he said, while he had her full attention, “this is Mr. Moreau. You’re going to behave yourself and listen to what he has to say, or he’s going to order me to shoot you.”  
******************************************************  
Eliot was as stunned as Parker when he heard Damien’s plan for the girl. _“I have followed your work, and I believe I can take your skills to the next level,”_ he’d said. _I want to make you a part of my security staff. Your own specialized skillset will remain a secret between you, Eliot and myself, and will be used at my discretion for our mutual benefit.”_

“You know I can fight, right?” Parker was trotting at his heels. “You didn’t get that black eye walking into a door.”

Frustrated nearly beyond reason, Eliot turned; stopping Parker in her tracks. “First of all, you got in a lucky shot. Second, Mr. Moreau wants you to be able to fit in as part of his security. That means that your days of fighting like an undisciplined animal are over.”

If asked, Eliot couldn’t have said how he knew what the girl was about to do. It was a shiver in the air between them, a heartbeat before she swung at him. He dodged the blow, catching her wrist on the back-swing and twisting her arm up behind her back; pushing her face first into the wall.

“That’s the difference between us,” he growled, molding himself to her back so that his mouth was right at her ear. “You might get in a blow or two, give me a bruise, maybe even draw blood. In the end though, my way will always win.”

“That’s funny,” Parker retorted, her voice breathy and half-strangled by the pressure he was putting on her. “I’ve always found the one who wins is the one who keeps an ace up her sleeve.”

Eliot had studied her file extensively before going to get her for Damien, and the only thing everybody seemed to agree on was that one of the greatest thieves of the twenty-first century was completely insane. He was about to write off what she’d said as something born of her psychosis, when she added, “For example, I’m betting that’s not a gun in your pocket.”

Eliot stepped back, releasing her immediately. “You’re not cute.”

Once she’d turned around, Parker dropped her gaze pointedly and then smirked up at him. “I think I’m adorable.”  
********************************  
That night, once Parker had been installed in a suite of rooms next to Eliot’s own, he went to sit with Moreau in his den. “I can’t decide whether you’re a genius bringing this girl on board, or whether you’re as crazy as she is,” he said, striding directly to the small refrigerator behind the bar and retrieving one of the micro-brews Damien kept cold for him.

Moreau took a sip of his brandy. “Go with genius. It will make all our lives easier.” When Eliot was settled across from him he set the highball glass down and leaned forward eagerly. “So? Tell me everything. I know there was a great deal of yelling from the back room of the gymnasium you took her to this afternoon.”

Eliot smiled in spite of himself. The session had been rough, but Parker was the first real challenge Damien had handed him in far too long. “I seriously don’t know how you looked at a master thief and saw something we could use, but there _is_ something there. A lot of innate skill – most of what she’s missing is discipline, and the willingness to learn what I can teach her.”

Moreau was clearly excited by the news. “So you _can_ work with what’s there?”

“As long as we keep her sufficiently incentivized so I don’t have to keep chasing her down and bringing her back,” Eliot said, “I can turn her into whatever you want.” He took a swig of his beer. “The important question is, aside from _what_ do you want her to be, _when_ do you need her to be it? What is my deadline?”

Even knowing Damien well enough to predict what the man would do with some reasonable accuracy, Eliot was still startled. “The embassy party at the end of the month. A delegation will be arriving from Iraq, and they are using the party as cover for an exchange of information crucial to our enterprises. Parker will be tasked to obtain the intelligence; her place in our security will be the perfect cover.”

As plans went, it wasn’t the worst Eliot had heard. No one would dare question a member of Damien Moreau’s personal security, and if there was a heist beyond Parker’s ability to pull off, he hadn’t found evidence of it. “I’ll need Chapman to take over some of my less important duties between now and then,” he said finally.

Damien waved a hand negligently, picking up his drink again. “If he whines, send him to me.”  
**********************************************  
Eliot spent most of that night thinking over the task Moreau had set him and running different scenarios. By morning he’d settled on a completely different course of action than the one he’d been intending to adopt.

“Three weeks from today, there will be a party at the Syrian embassy,” he announced when he saw Parker in the gymnasium the next morning. He extended a tablet in her direction and she took it. “A delegation from Iraq will be bringing information about arms movement in the region over the next six months.”

Now that he was working in her wheelhouse, as his father used to say, Parker was quick on the uptake. “You want me to steal the information.”

“In the middle of a very crowded party full of more powerful people than either you or I will ever know in a lifetime, yes.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Eliot waited while Parker continued to read the intel. There was something different about the girl now. She wasn’t wild or undisciplined – everything about her was settled and focused.

 _This could work,_ he thought. When she finally looked up at him again he continued, “This is likely to be the first of many such jobs Mr. Moreau wants you to do. If you can pull this off, he will reward you handsomely.”

“I have to pass as part of the security delegation,” Parker said calmly.

Eliot nodded. After a moment, she passed him back the tablet. “How do I start?”

It turned out to make all the difference in the world. Now that she had a goal to work for that she understood, and the promise of a reward on the other side, Parker couldn’t take in what Eliot needed to teach her fast enough. He started with combat training, recognizing that after everything that had brought them to this point they both likely needed to blow off steam.

As he had told Damien, Parker’s thieving skills meant that he could bypass a lot of the preliminaries. After a few hours he’d taught her all of the most basic self-defense moves he knew, and she could execute them as perfectly as someone who’d been working at them for months. He told her as much when he finally called a halt for the night.

“Tomorrow we’ll start working on weapons,” he said. “If you take to those as quickly as you do to the fighting, this might actually work.”

Parker grinned at him. “You’ve still got to show me how to act like one of your people.”

It surprised a laugh out of Eliot. “Okay, fair point.” He passed her a towel. “I can arrange for dinner in your rooms tonight, or you can join us in the downstairs dining room.”

She looked uncertain. “Who is ‘us’?”

Eliot was abruptly reminded of how young the girl was, and how sheltered. Being a thief of any sort rarely promoted a life of human interaction. “It’s the rest of Mr. Moreau’s security. Whoever isn’t on duty eats in the downstairs casual dining room. The family eats in the formal dining room one floor up.”

He tried to keep his voice and expression as neutral as possible, waiting to see which direction Parker’s instincts would push her. Finally she said, “I should probably eat with the others. That way you’ll know how much work we have to do.”  
**********************************************  
It turned out to be a lot. Not only was Parker painfully uncomfortable in large groups of people when she was the center of attention, Eliot’s men weren’t used to having a woman in their midst that wasn’t Damien Moreau’s wife or daughter.

Eliot dealt with it the way he did most things these days – separated the mess into its component parts and dealt with each piece in turn. His men were easy to handle – one talk with a promise of personal, one on one discipline with Eliot himself if they didn’t listen, and they all fell immediately in line.

For all her tough and detached way of dealing with the world, Parker turned out to require a slower, more gentle touch. Eliot passed on even more of his daily responsibilities to his second in command in favor of additional one on one sessions with the thief. He shared his security plans for the night of the party, taking the time to give her context for the evening and her part in it. Once she knew where she fit, Parker took to the lessons much easier.

 _It’s like learning a new language,_ he thought, watching as Parker endured a fitting with Damien’s tailor. The more he understood how the thief’s mind worked, the easier it became to guide her in the direction Moreau wanted.

“You promise I don’t have to eat with everyone?” she asked suddenly, looking across at him.

He grinned. “Not this time. The detail will eat before the party – you’ll be too busy working once everything starts.”

She looked noticeably calmer, so Eliot didn’t bother pointing out that eventually she would be expected to interact with the rest of the men. _They won’t trust you as long as they see you as an outsider._

But that was a problem for another day.

The closer they got to the night of the party, the greater the demands became on Eliot’s time. He was pleased when Parker didn’t complain – so long as she had a list of tasks to accomplish for him, she seemed perfectly content to plow ahead towards the goal.

“You’re going to be fine,” he told her the last night they had to themselves. He’d ordered all of Parker’s favorites for a dinner that they shared in her apartments. “The amount of time you’ll spend visibly on duty is really pretty short.”

“The lift’ll go smooth,” Parker said, around a mouthful of fried chicken tenders covered with a truly terrifying amount of ketchup. “You can tell Mr. Moreau that, if you want.”

Her focus on pleasing Damien was good, but Eliot hadn’t risen to his position as Moreau’s right hand without learning that it was always better to report successes than predict them. “You can tell him yourself,” he told her, “once you have the prize.”  
******************************************************  
Outsiders always assumed Eliot’s role as Damien Moreau’s right hand was like living in a James Bond movie – international parties and intrigue, beautiful clothes and even more beautiful people, and danger around every corner.

Okay, sometimes it was like that. Other times – like tonight – it was spent wrangling Damien’s children and seeing to the needs of his alternately drunk and neurotic wife. By the time all the attendees were seated, Eliot was thanking every god he didn’t believe in that the two youngest children had been left at home in the care of their nanny.

Once the guests were settled and the food was being served, he managed to break away to do a sweep. Only Parker was out of position; checking his watch, Eliot realized that it was time for the theft.

Moreau seemed to know it too – as Eliot returned to the dining room, he caught his master’s eye and went immediately to Damien’s side. “Is everything in order?” Moreau asked, his voice low.

Eliot nodded. “Yes sir.”

“I trust you to take everything in hand.” Which was Moreau’s way of telling him that the intel Parker was stealing wasn’t to leave in anyone’s possession but Eliot’s. Nodding, he stepped back from the table.

The layout of the embassy was easy to call to mind – he’d also made Parker review her plan for the lift with him step by step. Fixing everything in its proper place in the moment, he headed for where Parker should have been.

A knot of tension he hadn’t even realized he was carrying loosened in Eliot’s chest as Parker rounded the corner ahead of him and flashed him a quick smile. Exhaling softly, he quickened his pace and closed the distance between them. “Any trouble?”

The thief shook her head. “No sir.”

Keeping his hand low and between them, Eliot held out his hand. “Mr. Moreau wants the papers in his possession.”

Nodding, Parker reached beneath her suit coat. Eliot had a split second of warning before she grabbed his shirt front with her free hand and pulled him in for a kiss. Head spinning, not entirely sure what was happening, he yielded instinctively to the wild, passionate feel of her lips against his.

He was actually reaching for her, intending to take control of the situation again, when thick, cold pressure slid between his ribs, followed by pain slamming into him hard enough to take his breath away. “Can’t breathe, can’t scream,” Parker murmured as he collapsed against her. Suddenly much stronger than he remembered her being, Parker caught him and eased him to the floor.

“You taught me well,” she said, meeting his eyes. Desperate now to regain the oxygen he’d lost, to do anything to stop what was happening, Eliot grabbed for her. Catching his hand easily, she pushed it down. “Look at me. Look.”

When she had his attention, the thief’s expression turned almost gentle. “I wanted to thank you for bringing me in, and teaching me everything I needed to know.” Leaning in again, she kissed him gently on the forehead. 

Eliot closed his eyes as a blaze of heat and pain ripped through him, followed closely by a cold, unforgiving and unyielding darkness.


End file.
